Camden Dalrymple is the winner of the 2024 SIA School Safety Advocate Award

SILVER SPRING, Maryland – The Safety Industry Association (SIA) has named Camden Dalrymple as the winner of the 2024 SIA School Safety Advocate Award. The award recognizes individuals who have demonstrated outstanding leadership in improving legislation, standards, public policies or other initiatives that encourage the effective use of solutions and procedures technology to improve school safety and security. Dalrymple was honored with the award at the SIA GovSummit 2024 conference.

Camden Dalrymple is a 10th grade student at Montgomery High School in Montgomery, Pennsylvania and the student manager for the Montgomery Area School District Broadcasting Program. In his first solo broadcast project, Dalrymple served as creative director, lyricist and videographer for the public service announcement film “Stop the Prop,” created to raise awareness about school safety. The Stop the Prop campaign empowers students, school staff and visitors to help keep schools safe by taking a simple step: not propping open doors and closing doors they think are open.

“SIA commends Camden Dalrymple for his hard work in promoting policies to ensure schools are safe places for all students and staff,” said Colby Williams, deputy director of government relations at SIA. “While we remain committed to working with our member companies and related organizations to improve the safety of our schools, it has been rewarding to see students like Camden use their platforms to advocate for policies that can be implemented in their own school – even something that sounds as simple as “stop the kickstand” and locking the door will save a life. As a former high school teacher who is passionate about this issue, I have proudly watched Camden’s efforts to promote the ‘Stop the Prop’ campaign, and he certainly deserves recognition with the SIA School Safety Advocate Award.”

SIA is committed to improving the safety and security of schools across the United States by supporting increased federal aid for schools struggling to meet the costs of meeting safety needs and the adoption of similar state aid programs, and by promoting the nationwide application of school safety best practices that include rules for locking and locking certain doors if necessary. More information about SIA’s advocacy efforts can be found here.

The SIA School Safety Advocate Award was presented at a special awards ceremony during the SIA GovSummit. SIA GovSummit is the nation’s premier government security conference, bringing together government security leaders with private industry technologies for the highest quality information exchange, networking and education on security topics impacting federal, state and local agencies. The SIA GovSummit 2024 conference took place on May 21–22 in downtown Washington, DC.